Thursday, July 15, 2010

Thank You Larry Brown For Trying to Save us From This Horrendous European Trade Deal

I thought it was a good time to once again show this video of the Irish Parliament, where they are discussing the horrible trade deals that will have a negative impact on Canadians workers. It's also interesting that this Irish Parliamentarian has documents relating to Harper's privatizing of our water, and yet the Canadian media has missed this completely. Strange .. or not.

Larry Brown, National Secretary-Treasurer of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is in Brussels trying to prevent this further selling off of our public services

We meet with a senior member of the European Parliament. After our discussion about the proposed right of individual companies to challenge the decisions of elected governments if those decisions limit their right to make a profit; after hearing that the deal would force local government decisions over the purchase of goods and services to be purely market-based, with no consideration of the needs of the community allowed; after hearing that the deal would incorporate all the negative features of NAFTA, and make Europe a second-hand NAFTA partner, the issue of CETA rises quickly on his priority list of concerns, and we talk of ways we can work with progressive members of the European Parliament to challenge the deal.

... Public procurement especially should allow for social issues to be considered, not just the economics of the lowest bid. We note that under CETA, the chances for such considerations in procurement would be drastically reduced if not eliminated. We also note that all of the unsatisfactory elements of NAFTA will be visited on Europe, a NAFTA through the back door, if the deal isn’t challenged ... the government negotiators are closeted somewhere in the city, trying to move closer to an agreement that would once more bow to the gods of profit and commerce at the expense of people and their needs.

Please write your MP and tell them that this is not a good deal for Canada. There will soon be no good jobs left in this country.